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THE 

BIG BULL 



IN A COURT HOUSE 



TALE OF HOMOK, 




BY JACOBUS 

— — 







JACKSON COUNTY, GEORGIA 



/ 



IS 



X 



SURE AS A WEZIL. 



ATHENS, GA. 

FRANKLIN JOB OFFICE PRINT. 
1855. 



PREFATORY OBSERVATIONS, 

This caricature, true in sp'rit, nevertheiess > and 
not at all distant from my treatment in Jackson Coun- 
ty Court, which is revolting and tyrannic ! and 
eventually destructive of our Country's independ- 
ence, if generalized — and even as specific, hell open- 
ing to the souls of my persecutors — shall be follow- 
ed by a main and grave argument, in extenso. I wish 
to excite mirth.and fix attention, for the better re- 
ception of the formal complaint and exposure. 

J. J, FLOURNOY. 



BIG BULL. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 



His Honor, the Judge. 
Solicitor General. 
Att'rs. — Peeples & Hill- 

YER. 

Clerks — Hinton & Pitt- 
man. 



Pros. — Flournoy. 
! Culprit — Flanigan. 

Witnesses— Mrs. Venable, 
Mrs. Lavender and 
Thomas Fintch ; and 
Twelve Jurymen. 



Sol. Gen. Your Honor : the case of the State 
versus Flanigan for stabbing, comes up for conside- 
ration. Mr. Flournoy prosecutor. 

Judge. Let it be heard. 

The jurymen empannelled, and the etceteras done. 

Hillyer. The case is based on informal proceed- 
ings — -the name of the prosecutor on the indictment 
misspelt : it is not Flournoy, [Aside — how good 
was the clerk, Hinton ! he is cute, and cares for 
Deafus like I do for a black wench !] As this 
whole matter is impertinent, since no desperado, 
heavier than the prosecutors exist, on the face of this 
globular terrene, I move the quashing of the whole 
affair, as taking up time better d voted to the con- 
sidering of something that is "something." 

Peeples. The case is fm^ and the question is 
not to be entertained ( l nor) when the mat- 

ter is of course. 



Judge. We will hear the prosecu^i and the 
prosecuted. 

Flournoy had gone out, supposing the Sheriff 
would call him when the time arrived ; and was at 
the Post-office, some thirty yards off. No one give 
the notice ; but he was casually called in when his 
evidence was wanted, and no chance afforded him 
of challenging jurors, one of whom was his enemy, 

Witnesses sworn. FlournQy on the stand. Was 
stabbed, when standing still, ten feet from where 
the gun was taken from the prisoner at the bar, by 
his rushing on him with a knife. Golden took 
awav the gun. 

Finch. Flournoy tried to get the gun from Flani- 
gan. What for, don't know. [Aside. HI fix it 
for the deaf pretender to indict a hearing man ! the 
jury, as grand rascals as myself, are as quick to give 
Flanigan the benefit of a doubt, as 1 to tell this lie. 
Me and Flanigan are boon, drunken companions ; 
are mesmerised into each other like Hell.] 

Mrs. Venahle. Heard Flanigan swear, like the 
devil, that he'll kill him (Flournoy) that time. 

Mrs. Lavender. He came two days thereafter, 
to my domicel, and said he was sorry he did not 
slay him as he tried to do that night. 

Mr. Peeples rose and entertained the jury with an 
eloquent speech of about one hour. He was mighty 
on the forum. Rather a Patrick Henry, or a Hen- 
ry Clay — but no Webster, scrupling to weigh word 
and evidence at every step. During his flowing in- 
tonations, the jury looked down like thunder-struck 
goslings ; they were angry and meditative. Fast- 
" sharp-fellows," as they were not to be caught by 
Peeple's tongue—especially when the glory is to 
such a deaf out-cast as Flournoy ! 



Mr. Hillyer rose, (though a sort of a dwarf,) like 
some Polyphemus, when he moved fram his charnel 
house cave to look about for " sup'n to eat." He 
took off his neck-cloth, and went at Flournoy like 
a thousand devils ! He was awful ! He told the 
gaping jury — glad to hear what they best love to 
suppose, sacred truth ! — that, by Finch's evidence, 
Flournoy' ] s nothing contravening I the prosecutor 
had tried to get Flanigan's gun, may be, to kill 
Flanigan with it, deadlier than any stone ! Judge 
Hillyer was not eloquent. His was the merest fa- 
miliar confab that everybody knows can charm an 
old woman's ear — pipe in mouth. The merest talk 
a la a forecastle sailor's yarn. But here the strength 
of the forensic power lay. He was using Peeples up 
completely, as he iixed his falcon talons on one, and 
the weakest, side of Flournoy, and by long and in- 
cessant confinement to it alone, fairly "Leavened 
the whole lump," but one, of the jury ; and intro- 
duced willing minds to a clairvoyance, that made 
Flournoy feel little! 

Poor deaf, and therefore, since deaf, to be justly, 
and truly and duly abhorred, Flournoy — according 
to the nice casuistry of the world, applied to his en- 
tity, with all the quididity adroit prejudice could 
master ! — was in hot water. In vain he audibly 
whispered to his lawyers, — to see them get up and 
say Finch's testimony, before that immaculate truth 
teller, Mr. Flournoy, is not oi any consequence ; in 
vain he had wished Golden, his deliverer, to have 
spoken an evidence any how — all was no go. His 
attorneys would do nothing more. And the artful, 
the subtle, the ingenius Hillyer, was master of the 
field. Not so, had Golden been not scorned by his 
own lawyers, and heard, as Golden could tell as 



8 

much as, or more than Finch, to show that truth lay 
in the mouth of the deaf man. 

But oh, the infatuation of the prosecuting law- 
yers. It is wonderfully grievous that they did not 
set seriously about convicting the criminal ! Why ? 
God knows. Golden's testimony was " a pearl," 
any how, " of great price !" Mismanagement ! 

But why did not the Judge shape the course of 
the trial so as to befriend this friendless deaf ? Ah, 
sir, hold your peace, or I will excoriate your Honor 
with another Pamphlet, till you bleed in every pore. 
I know my innocent rights are equal to every other 
tax paying man's — and knowing, will dare maintain 
them ! 

HillyCr, though speaking as if he were not able to 
make a speech — a mere school girl's lack-a-daisical 
rhapsody of every day humble talk, as pretendless 
as a confab between two cuffees, was in argument, 
drawing a chain of fortuitous circumstances, to make 
them, as by magic, absolute verities, and he suc- 
ceeded with a but too willing pack — and succeeded 
where he did not believe himself ! 

Jupiter Ton an s Hillyer went on — though he to 
the visible sight looked like " nobody," and calling 
Flournoy " strong as a Bull," suddenly revived all 
the cannibal propensities of the old Scandinavians, 
the Goths, the Heruli, the Vandals and Samartians, 
the Astrogoths, the Visigoths, and the Teutons, 
Gauls and Celts, and what not — whose commingling 
blood now dwelt in the veins of the twelve arbiters, 
now sitting on the fortune of Flournoy, the Frank. 

The idea that a Bull was present, but not rampant, 
— a Bull, and passive, ready, like a nice grown lamb, 
for the knife of the butcher — proved one too many 
for the Court ! Anon men began to take retrospec- 



9 

live glances at early ancestorial reminiscences. His 
Honor could no more help himself, when he thought 
of good human beef by the surloin, than he could . 
help letting in his dignified composure, when he 
should chance to see a pretty girl, his wayward sray, 
casual thoughts a. solicitation, from momently over- 
coming, like a transient cloud, his more virtuous 
meditations, on which is fixed his constitutional 
temperament! , 

"Egad, is any good beef here ?" inquired the dis- 
ciple of Eldon. . . 
Jndee H. looked aghast ! He did not, amid his 
cogitation," quite mean a liter ality. He doubted 
the reason of th"8 bearer of the sacred Ermine. But 
« a glance of recognition" of the glorious twelve 
whose mouths watered for the sacrifice, convinced 
him that he had gained the day— the liberation of 
at worthless desperado, who may accumulate vic- 
iims. " without regard to the good order, honor and 
dignity of the State of Georgia, or the peace there- 
of " Being a well-bred son of etiquette, he fell into 
the melee. Hear him. " As fine a subject for the 
table and the larder as ever Maximm found, of his 
forty daily pounds, on the imperial Roman table. 
This burst of eloquence, like that of Burke on Bas- 
ting's trial, or that of Pitt on the subject of the Re- 
venues, startled the audience, and they "saw battle 
in his face." They rejoiced now to find the law- 
yer no longer obliged to stoop low and play ' possum,' 
but with the elevation of conscious dignity, speak- 
ing with the force of genius, outrivalling Demosthe- 
nes and Cicero. The scene now " beggars all de- 
scription !" "Law, order and the Constitution" 
were abrogated, and " no whar ;" and every one 
threw off restraint and deference, when so lusty a 



10 

Bull was in question, or under consideration, and the 
soul of every man was plainly, transparently seen, 
uttering his definite thoughts. His Honor, sitting 
with composed dignity, rejoiced mightily at the 
hope, though he evinced still the imperturbable gra- 
vity of the Judiciary, of the delicious idea, that what 
the rude Briton, his sire of a hundred generations, 
as the Druid prepared the feast, danced extatic about, 
was now come to him — and nobody, archly mock- 
ing, laughing or sensible of the incongruity of this 
scene in this ( 19th) century. Never was a sober as- 
sembly so drunken. It was one of those moral phe- 
nomena that occurs when Satan, tired of pestering 
the poor Jobs of the earth, occasionally refreshes 
himself by holding a jubilee withjiis children 3 as he 
did when Tarn O'Shanter saw his Ball at the Old 
Kirk! when his sable majesty fiddled mightily, 
and the •< short-shirk'd leaped." 

His Honor being justly sensible that the clerk 
was experienced in all barbecue technicalities, gra- 
ciously requested permission of the jury, to ask the 
man of the quill's counsel, as to the best proceedure 
at this emergency. 

'• Here, Mr. Clerk," said Hillyer, for and in behalf 
of his glorious Honor, the immortal Judge, "we 
find us," says he, looking fiercely about like a hun- 
gry Bengal tiger, " so circumstanced with a fat ani- 
mal in our very midst, even here in the court house, 
where it were good so much flesh had never come; 
but as he. is now here, venerating the names of our 
ancestors, we intend for once a saturnalia over his 
remains ! Tell us how things can be squared." 

Clerk. Mr. Judge, and gentlemen of this .work 
bench of the clerk, may it please your Honors — as 
the Bull is deaf- — I do not reckon his sacrifice worth 



11 

straining at a bit ! but let's eat him up, and to-mor- 
row forget there was ever such a thing cumbering 
the earth ! So much for so much deafness. That 
a Bull — " brutum fnlmen" — did come, horns, hoof 
and all, into this arena of our jurisprudence, is a 
thing to be astonished about ! 

Can such things be, 



And overcome us like a Summer's cloud, 
Without ourspeeial wonder ?" 

But I, " allaire flamen" declare that since 'tis so } 
we can make another, as surprising occurrence to 
match the preventing, and as one revolting circum- 
stance, put down another, and leave the atmosphere 
clearer and purer ; so after eating up this Bull, we 
shall, feeling our powers reinvigorated, come here to- 
morrow, abler to resume business which has been 
interrupted by the presence of this beast. I will ob- 
serve that he is a fine subject for the oven, pot and 
table ; and if sold in the market would nett us 40 
dollars ; but considering the state of our stomachs, 
just now, we will stew him in this here stove just 
before me, and by parcels. His Honor and the court 
appurtenances, that is the officers, jury and lawyers, 
of course, to have the firstness, and the spectators 
the next ; and we will send the third as presents to 
our friends, the ladies. The animal is a whale-like 
one, and is capable of feeding about, as near a* I can 
guess, let me see, 300 men — and all the complete 
bellyfull. 

" Ah, that's right," interrupted one of the jury, 
provided we wash him down with something !" 

" Gentlemen, as I observe impatience in your 
greedy eyes — and my chum, here, Pittman's mouth, 
waters like mine, and his tongue laps like a cat's — 



12 

I motion that Hillyer prepare the rites, sacred to 
the Druids of time out of memory/ 5 

His Honor smiled a gracious hut melancholy as- 
sent, looking at the high Priest, for the occasion — 
inasmuch as the belly had to be attended to. 

Did you never read the fable of Menelaus Agrip- 
patothe withdrawing plebeians of Rome? He 
that has not, is a mere novice as to the importance, 
dignity and majesty of the Belly. 

True to his duty, always in the service of the peo- 
ple and the cause, Hillyer whetted the bowie blade 
on his shoe sole, and dashing off his coat, as an alert 
and faithful caterer in the people's business, he 
came towards the Bull, with eyes glaring like a cat 
fish's, and placing one arm akimbo, took hold of 
the subject of this sketch. Flournoy was surprised. 
It was a moment : " Nature," as with the monk of 
Sterne, " had done with her resentments in him," 
and he could feel but little excitement any way! 
He rose, and gently pushed back the hand of theDwr- 
id. Hillyer was dumb-struck with astonishment at 
this audacity of the fellow, in militating with the 
sacred Court's command, and as he was looking like 
the Pope, surprised at Luther, the man wariked out, 
and had vanished— and was gone to where he had 
a living resting place, if any at all on earth ! 

" There was silence" in the court for three min- 
utes. ' Gradually, bright reason seemed to resume 
her throne of the human intellect, because the sub- 
ject of their confusion was absent. As rational 
views returned, the Judge closed the scene for din- 
ner with these observations, that : " Now and then, 
extraordinary and shameful actions are, it seems, in- 
evitable as destiny. When past there is no help; 
but the resource is to treat it as a dream ; to pass it 



13 

bv with unbroken silence, and to let nature resume 
her powers over the sensible reorganization of intel- 
ligence, and accruing action. But we can feel one 
satisfaction above the case, were it that of a respect- 
ed hearing, though ignorant man, or learned, m this, 
that the person Judge HiUyer compared to a Bull, 
who, because it was himself made us despise him 
and all his purposes, is a deaf one, and exceedingly 
unpopular; and since there is so much prejudice 
against him and his right to come into Court we 
need apprehend very little about what himself or 
his friends can say. 

Gentlemen of the jury, go up to your room and 
bring him, as all such rascals ought to be, a mali- 
cious prosecutor, for what right has a deaf fellow 
to try to indict a hearing gentleman? I am sure 
vour feelings revolt at the idea of letting such a man 
send a hearing person to the Penitentiary ! ! I won- 
der not that you would eat him up! You rejoice 
I know, at his coming discomfiture. Were hearing 
men ignorant and vile as Isaac Flanagan, to slay 
such deaf persons as Flournoy, let their ghostsalone 
take retribution. You, I am sure, won't. If he 
« hits" sweet adorable Isaac, why pitch into him, 
tear his lights ! let day light through him ! If Isaac, 
sweet, good, jolly, hale, drinking, stabbing, shoot- 
ing Isaac, say Flournoy presumed to hurt him, 
fetch him in " guilty" Yea, gentlemen ! let us dis- 
courage deaf presumption, and loftiness, trnd fellow- 
ship and liberty, as we would all the abominations 
of the earth. . 

At this step, one of the jurymen said : "your 
gracious Honor opens our minds 'zactly : Don t 
let him come in here till he has a guardian !" 



14 



The J U( jge resumed. "Ah, gentlemen! I see 
how it is : The dignity of Jackson County's de- 
cency is insulted by the arrogancy of Floumoy, who 
ought to have a guardian ; for what right have deaf 
people , to disobey the Statute of our State, that du- 
t*J m ldl0 ' s . in law, "and benevolently 
provides them guardians." So long as he is sauci- 
iy w.thout that guardian, away with him-" cruel 
iy him— release Barabbas (Flanigan ) to us." Tell 
me not I am blaspheming, for as this deaf man 
keeps ca ling on the Lord, the analogy is right- 
but don't believe the Lord notices so much deaf 
ness. What if he be able, if let alone, hSt.ce t 
take care of his property without a guardian ! Ttet 
is no point at all, gentlemen of the jury ! and if we 
g,W*W j 1 ™ a " J^tice, punish him if 
he assail any body, and thus take away his citizen- 

fe? Ti y , and *. uly rej0ice t0 kn ™ i{ is ^body 
but a proud-looking deaf fool, confound him." The 
J .^^f ^evidently apprehensive of a rod in 
termem of the people and jury,these desperate times! 
Mi. Peeples rose, tremulous as an aspen leaf with 
lear, as he was "treading amid burning plowshare » 
and ventured to suggest that " Flourfmy's S\ 

a g a atst hLT A Und ° Ubt f : "° trUe bil1 can be £5 
against him for any penal offence: whereas, if re- 

poit be true the culprit at the bar was guilty of 

ffifdoll? T ^ , Am0ld ' the knife blu »^'S on 

ohMH,r/' S P °u ke V and k is su PP° sed beat 

John M. Holhday, when faint with the gun-shot 

wound. Now the contest for character before a cri 
minal court as to hurtfulness to society between them 
redounds, mfinitely, to the credit ofmy ZffeZ 
mg chent, whose deafness ought to excife no abhor 



15 

rence or prejudice, since you, gentlemen of the jury, 
do not hate the blind, or the lame, or the monocular 
or one eyed. Then why the deaf ? especially this 
one ?" 

A juror replied, " we hate pride j and deafness, 
when proud, is intolerable !" 

" B _;t," said Mr. Pee pies, " he is not proud : he 
is familiar with the poorest man ; he married a pea- 
sant's dowerless daughter ; he regards all his broth- 
ers, and ever is the friend of the poor as of the rich." 

" No matter for that ! let him have a guardian, 
even though he can manage his own estate, for we 
cannot endure him — and his guardianship is the ul- 
timatum — -for through a guardian can he find pro- 
• iction here." 

Thus the jury : and bowed tiietUseTyes IiKe 
French dancing masters from the bar, having the 
last instructive word. 



SERIOUSLY, 

No man, or woman, either, or child, has heard me 
tell an untruth. And oaths do not a whit confirm or 
help the truth, which exists in me as innately as the 
love of God. I always speak and act as if the Bible 
were being perpetually kissed by my lips in every 
stage of my life. No man can gainsay this. I now 
assert in the face of the universe and with GOD for 
my con-firming witnfss, that if I did try to get Isaac 
Flanigan's rifle from him — which I do not recollect 
attempting at all — I did so to prevent his shooting 
me, not at all to hurt him with it. I had no weapons, 



16 

no knife, no cane, no pistol, no gun, and no " rock ,? 
— and with my naked hands, held harmless awhile, 
from hurting me, a felon, the Jury acted as if I 
wished to kill ! The fact is, people of the United 
States, that I pay taxes, annually in Georgia without 
her protection ! and the further fact is, that unless 
cardinally amended, trial by jury ought to be abolish- 
ed as a nuisance! 

Jackson county people, as usually, may unthink- 
ingly laugh at me ; Georgia may sneer ; the United 
States may disnotiee. But there is one that neither 
laughs, sneers, nor disnotices — at whom even Satan 
trembles — One mighty to avenge, and omnipotent to 
bless—the LORD of SABAOTH. To Him, as one 
of the poor, I appeal ; and charge you with undeserv- 
ing oppression ! and if He abandon you to yc r own 
delusion, the political history of this State and Union 
would cease to be recorded as that of a Republic ; 
and future historians write about a monarchy, or des- 
potism, whose Judge would be as Turkish Cadis, and 
no longer, if a doom rest on this land, what Judge 
Jackson and others, a part of his predecessors, affect 
to be or to have been ! 

I have nothing personal against His Honor, but 
oaths are too sacred to allow, in a free country, the 
uncitizenship of any tax payer ! I groan ! I say to 
him in groans : Did your Honor not charge the ma- 
laperts, misdignified with the solemn name of jury, to 
bring in, if they believed so, the fact that I was stab- 
bed ? and did you not taunt me, afterward, with the 
assertion, that they justly " preferred to believe 
Finch," as if juries under oath can choose whom to ac- 
credit, and whom not, and by nothing but sheer pre- 
judice? I hold you, sir, to your constitutional obliga- 
tion that would have kept you and thatj and will all 



IT 

other juries, from infringing* on my national and consti- 
tutional rights ! ! ! Did you not say find him guilty of 
stabbing if he did stab ? But when the jury, fell as 
the fellest devil under my sole, brought in l 'not guil- 
t}-/' did you enlightenedly and intelligently call them 
to lexiconize what they meant ? jSTo, sir, you owed it 
to God, to the country, to me, and to the peace of 
mankind, and the security of innocence, to have de- 
manded " what is your meaning by ' not guiltv' ' 1 — 
the term is too vague and evasive. Come, say what 
was meant ? " Did the culprit stab Mr. Flournoyr or 
did he do it as you mean, defensively or justifiably?" 
Nor did you proceed in hauling this jury over to the 
Constitutional regimen in such cases. Recreant juries 
are not the sovereign people. They are only a wild 
Jacobinical set ! a ferocious, corrupt shoot from the 
body politic, that have as little sympathy with the spir- 
it of free men, and of honest men, as they are totally 
unfit to sit over the lives and property of just men, or 
over the fate of criminals ! and the only or main effect 
of their existence, is to divest honest patriots of confi- 
dence in the Justice of the Government and its le^al tri- 
bunals ; and by incurring the expense of litigatton, to 
make, what were otherwise firm pillars of the Repub- 
lic, to sigh for a monarchy, as the alternative, to a corrupt 
commonwealth in which neither evil nor good is attai- 
nable by the change ! Passive recipients, as it comes 
from destiny ! 

Mr. Webster, incontestable at the head of the 
American Bar. in the case of Massachusetts versus 
Orowninshield andthe Knapps,for assassination of Mi . 
White, of Salem, in order to obtain his papers to secure 
possession of his property, remarked that "homicide 
can be justifiable in no manner but when the danger of 
the destruction of the defender of his life is so imminent 
as to allow no delay or evasion," 



18 

Now, I can say, in excusing Adams for the murder 
of Cook, his danger was not imminent. The appear- 
ance did not justify the destruction. Nor at any rate, 
did my conduct to Flanigan, standing still, unarmed, 
as I did,twenty feet off, justify his stabbing, if in self-de- 
fence. It was in malicious revenge, and that only to 
hill. His course, if I did him injustice by holding 
him, was to go to the court and indict me. This is the 
way. But if the jury, out of abhorrence of me, for only 
my appearance, (for I know not why it is, else,) could 
acquit him for stabbing, they may for murder in a simi- 
lar case ; and this is the most flagrant departure|from the 
terms of their oaths, the Constitution, the spirit of the 
organization of courts, that can be conceived under the 
sun. 

If w r e have a Government of Liberty or Democracy, 
we must have a government of security of life and 
property, also, else liberty will be a mockery, and 
Democracy, like the Jacobins of Revolutionary France, 
a mere illusion, deluding to some disaster byno means 
gratifying to the heart of either traitor [ or patriot. I 
hope Georgia, and Jackson county, will profit by this 
admonition. 

How opulent once was the Hebrew Nation, when 
Solomon made gold so abundant as to sheath the 
Temple with it in and out, and which emitted, Jose- 
phus said, a very fiery splendour, as the rays of the 
rising sun fell upon it ; and in whose reign silver was 
accounted for nothing, from its superabundance, as 
the stones in the- streets of Jerusalem ! With what 
prospects could this nation have anticipated its pro- 
gress? How powerful and now happy ! But prone 
to imitate the surrounding heathen, and to hanker 
after the idols of Egypt, as if " the Egyptians were 
gods and their horses spirits"- — (as see one of the pro- 



19 

phets) — tins once most fortunate country is now total- 
ly lost ! as well as for rejecting Christ. 

Our own Republic has now the fairest prospect for 
greatness and felicity and perpetuity in Liberty and 
Union — but I feel a foreboding that this great peo- 
ple " will utterly corrupt themselves," from a varie- 
ty of circumstances, a few of which are the innate de- 
pravity of mortals ; the foreign influence of pride 
and fashion and indifference thrown on thp land ; the 
irrascible independence of our own people who are 
educated indeed, but not to stern virtue and rigid 
integrity, while ignorance is rampant ; and the con- 
tinuance here of an African race that bodes no good 
to our future. From all these causes, our country, 
now so possible of prosperity, may fall as did Israel, 
Greece and Rome : for v>ho can rescue her from this 
inevitable destiny of the cornet? Our regenera- 
tion is to be moral, not only political ; the hearts of 
the people are to be taught virtue, not merely the 
heads to learning. A corrupt people make a corrupt 
government ; and a vitiated government will soon fall, 
when God withdraws His protecting Providence. 
How lamentable is it that our people do not know 
where their strength lies ! It is not in flesh, nor the 
means of flesh, but in Omnipotence — but an omnipo- 
tence wdiose Omniscience we are now, like the past 
fallen Empires of freemen, grossly and repeatedly 
offending, by our recklessness, and culpable enormi- 
ties ! Who can rescue us ? /cannot; for who hears 
or heeds me ? Morally lean do nothing; and polit- 
ically, Henry Clay, the man who thrice succeeded 
in compromising our National differences to the salva- 
tion of this Emperial Union, is now gone forever. 
Yea, what can I do ? I that am treated by the rich 
with cold indifference and contumely, and by the poor 



20 

with no better epithet for my name than "old Flour- 
noy,'' which reminds me of the term, " the old devil ;' 5 
and if they ought t) say, in respect, "old Mr. Flour- 
noy," though my years are not yet properly within 
the category of the aged, that title is entirely denied 
me by four-fifths of our wretched people, who are re- 
ally fast approaching that catastrophe — the gala of 
the kings and oligarchies of the world, as they gloat 
over our coming humiliation, and point to our fate as 
the recurrence of the event, always premonishing the 
instability of popular institutions. 

The vast majority of the inhabitants of Jackson 
county, Georgia, have no particular feelings of kind- 
ness or friendship for me, nor w 7 ould they feel desir- 
ous to show toleration to a man that is deaf, and ap- 
pears as I do, when such toleration is also claimed by 
another. They hate and stare, and wonder at me ; 
and feel prejudice, but there is no love, or but little 
of it here. 

The Sate of Georgia, in Legislature once, without 
a solitary exception in favor of the able portion of 
them, in the face of its Statute, ordained that "deaf 
persons are idiots in law ;"' and the general opinion, 
out of the Capitol is, that I ought to have a guar- 
dian, because deaf, and my looks, beard and gener- 
al aspect, are incapable of securing me friends, among 
any but really Christian Philosophers, or the natural- 
ly benevolent. 

This fact I know from the way this unfriendly com- 
munity look at me ; from ferocious or malicious glan- 
ces of jurymen in the courts — even before the case 
be opened, or a witness sworn ! And the conclusion 
is, that they hate me with " hearty good will," and 
have as little affection or care fof me, as if the Deca- 
logue and Sermon on the Mount never existed. 



21 

But, in thus maligning mc, and as juries denying 
me justice at law, they do not stop in the act of per- 
secuting a deaf man — but virtually stab at their 
own existence as jurors. The question with me has 
come to be, and I will make it that of the country, 
whether the trial by jury has, by its corruption and 
the manifold uncertainty of justice, made it a matter 
that this trial be abolished ? Men do not want to 
have juries for play-things, and to dream of, as the 
" Palladium of liberty.'' They want rigid and e.v- 
>>ct justice, and liberty in fact, by equity. And, 
when the uncertainty of the Law be more dreadfully 
uncertain through the intervention of juries, men, if 
they have sense at all, will destroy the prevailing 
system, and look about for a superior substitute, that 
the just may be protected from the unjust. I am 
but one example : but my individual example is much ! 

The question is, that when one man, from anything 
but fair and absolute rectitude and proper conscience 
in court and jury, has been denied justice, should 
this course have toleration because he was deaf or 
simple or prejudice against ? It takes away my citi- 
zenship. It makes me taxed by the State, and yet 
gives me no protection ! 

Our fathers resisted Britain, because they were 
taxed without representation. But what now, when 
I am taxed without protection ? 

Shall I only know my native State by her tyranny 
— her oppression ? Taxed not only literally, with- 
out representation, for who represents me, or the 
deaf? but taxed without protection. How abomina- 
ble ! Yet what will the State do with Jackson county 
for this ? Or what the United States with Georgia ? 
The constitution, in the eyes of traitors who wish to 
be esteemed patriots, or k< don't care nohow,'' is ve- 



99 



rj properly made nugatory, where it is relating to 
the rights of the deaf Flournoy— although that con- 
stitution said that " a citizen of one State must have 
the rights of a citizen of all the other States.'' 

Thus spoke the constitution. It is tantamount to 
commanding any oath-breaking Governor to "do busi- 
ness" in this county of Jackson, and any equally 
perjured President to invade the heinous section. 
For as citizens in other States have better protection 
than I have here, so the constitution is violated in my 
person ! But who cares to vindicate it where a deaf 
greybeard is in question ? No one. And there is 
no justice in the case but that of an offended God up- 
on the State and Union, that would not listen to the 
poor, and whose " Cry has entered into the ears of 
the Lord of Sabaoth" — as see the Epistle of the 
Apostle James. 

That in this case, void of God's pleased Providence, 
Georgia can be happy, or great, or peaceful ; or the 
United States protected and increased, is enigmati- 
cal ! But I presume this mad people care no more 
for my warning than did the Hebrews for that of Isaiah. 

Well, if the United States, and Georgia along with 
them, become a monarchy, and the ancient dogma 
continue true, that "man (or raiher poor men) be in- 
capable of self-government," and the hopes of the op- 
pressed quenched by the gloomy sun-set of freedom ; 
I cannot help that. I have spoken and written much. 
But who hears or respects my word? 

I have no doubt that there are many poor as well 
as rich men in Georgia, and the other States, who 
would rejoice at the restoration of Kingcraft here, 
as much as did the tories of England and France, at 
the restoration of Charles the II., and Louis the 
XVII. Nor is this all : the Whigs and true Demo- 



23 



Craw, who have intelIio- encp P „„„„i, , , 
triotism enough to care fo, T Z f to<no 5>. anJ P a " 
disheartened all over 1 JCl whE aiUl , ^r™' *" 
similar to Jackson conn ^ J he "atao t° t tT ?" 
practicability of obtaining thei ri, ts n ** 

quently they have no enthusiasm &, ' ° m&t ~ 

and its institutions because of J ' C ° Untly 

With what the goo and w 1 J f' comme ™™te 
goodly adminisTe r d g0 : 6 n ™ n " f ^^ f ° r ' 
would show that our in?t;S nd t!le se 1 uel 
ignorant and bad In " CaiMOt endure al »ong 

a^ who w^iStr-ctaStvs-t :r han tor ^ 

ment, at a chance • and rfiSWJ / 1 , et m a m °- 
who see no hope in "he 1 W b A WOr % 1Mn 
have no d&cfon ffr ° f t!lC11 ' COUnt ^ 

all the talk and excitlentt polSTnT^'' 1 ^ 
mery — and wherwn ™~ i ^ ullclcal and a mum- 

genial to their virtuoSosomf*' eqmtaWe &nd Con - 

ShrSSSS:^ 0f0 -' ~y ? 
lainous, and lb? „ ft n Ce ° f £<? ? *& *«? & 
jnst leaves „s weak an e d 6 p n o C o e r indeed ^ ° f tht ' 

unoffending head i ' 7 Wow aimed a ' my 

^E^^i?^^ys to iw, 

properly inform iunV, * c + 1 • , ud £ e > presiding, 
tike the Areop agus of ancient Athens, 



24 



Sileih4^UWtohave no liking or hate 
for countenances, and only made to hear the causes .' 
v tl k not Every iury and Jndge see the swtors 
h mo" is made u7in J thl decision of verdicts and 
hutments by impressions favorable or disfayoiable 
J oflmsons,t y hanbythe merit of any case-at least 

S 1S™;^rtd careless rascals who f re 
appointed on juries understand what the oath «« 

^MlS^m ^r ^ udge ft: 

world-thotwh my readings of books and papers have 
be n va and multifarious-and that was by a Judge 
of Rhode Island, who told the venire or panel-that 
it imnhes « so help you God" to evil or to good, ac- 
co d£ to your fidelity to the evidence laid before you. 
Holnrany of the twelve that acquitted my attempt- 
Pf l assign who, since the trial is over, boldly avows 
hi "urpose was to slay, had the least compreh— 
nf what "so help you God" means? lhen idea 
scJs no higher to rLh its meaning than the flatter- 
ing mM it were so help you God, >yhow, to 

H How many Judges in Georgia or the world, or in 
JaSsL cX five ever explained 0»gttg£ 
of this oath to the increasing perjunsts that twice 
Income before them, to assist the unprmcplel 
Cvers who have all the high and lucrative offices 
KK by the popular vote, and by appointments, 
1-S'WdU maturest counsels " by their 
impertinent and God-blaspheming verdicts? 

Juries take this oath without ever hearing it ex 
plained by any schoolmaster, parent, neighbor 01 
Judge ! ! ! 



25 

From what I know of that noble-souled man — 
Judge A. S. Clayton may have explained this Oath 
to gaping juries — ignorant enough to stare, hut not 
to think — but none of his successors, not one, I be- 
lieve, has ever explained what "so help you God" 
means ! 

Hence it is that a court of Justice, in Jackson 
county, so far as I be concerned, is a fallacy ; and 
will not be made a whit better by such presiding offi- 
cers as it generally has. 

When I was about to take the witness' stand, my 
attorney, C. Peeples, warned me not to "gesticulate,' 
or show forth so as to create prejudice. There now ! 
How did he know juries would feel prejudice because 
of a mans looks, when they swear to go by testimo- 
ny, alone? 

Again, the Judge in a letter to me, far from flatter- 
ing or friendly, assured me that " the jury pre- 
ferred to believe Finch to me.' 5 There now, acrain! 
What right had juries to have any preference or 
choice, as to believing whom they please f They had 
alone to go by proofs, and were designed in the orig- 
ination of them, to be as cold and indifferent to the 
parties as ice, and exactly blind to looks as were the 
Areopagites of ancient Greece ! 

I shall close this, by giving the world in two or 
three cases, the facts as how I am served bv the peo- 
ple of Georgia ; and I hope they will draw" a righte- 
ous inference — that I seemed born for persecution. 

Facts can show, and any one can judge for him- 
self. If others be served as myself, their oppression 
was not right ; and I do not mean to be silent. But 
I doubt that others have the same treatment. But 
the world can judge. 



On the 9th of Janury, 1852, I took stage at Au- 
gusta for Savannah, via Waynesborough. A cer- 
tain female wished me to keep off the middle seat, 
and refused me the back seat where she sat ; and the 
driver, at her request, urged me, or rather command- 
ed, to take the front, and only ceased his audacity, 
when I said I could not well ride backwards. Now I 
was not troubling this woman. And she and the dri- 
ver had discovered I was deaf. Moreover, I was en- 
titled to the best seat as much as she. And a male 
passenger coming in, soon took the very seat beside 
of her, though a stranger, from which she had repell- 
ed me. 

Has a deaf man any rights, any love of peo- 
ple, any deference or consideration ? We shall still 
farther see. 

This conduct of that too probable strumpet, for 
no virtuous lady would act so, and of that driver 
made me nervous, and as I had just risen from a long- 
kept sick bed, I became, as I strove to sleep, delirious 
and spasmodic : in this state I lay until the stage 
reached the junction of the unfinished rail way ; and 
the driver ordered me out, though no return passen- 
ger was waiting for the vehicle. As I was unwell, I 
begged a few minutes delay. He became furious, got 
three of the servants (whites) of the road and tried 
to eject me by force. Failing in this, they became 
ierocious ; and an Irishman (Logan I presume, or 
some name like it) took my right leg, as it jutted 
through the door, and being a strong fellow, gave it 
a twist, wrench and bend, and dislocated it, so that I 
was not able to walk. I saw him do this. But I was, 
after I volunatrily left the coach, forced on to Savan- 
nah without allowance of time to bandage my leg and 
to have medical aid. This was illegal and outrage- 



6tts» All that was proper was to leave me on the way. 
I was driven from the City Hotel by Condon, because 
I was a little noisy. I wandered the streets of Sa- 
vannah, so soon as I could walk, and as I was melan- 
choly and cadaverous, no one till late, allowed me 
hospitality or lodging ; and of the numerous lawyers 
of that vain and irritable city, not one would assist 
me into court as a complainant against the Central 
'Railroad company. And the yellow fever interven- 
ing, I suspended applications till it got too late. They 
say God was angry with that people, for when the 
yellow fever was at its height, He sent a hurricane 
and shook down much of it, alike sanctuary as dwel- 
ling. And if the Irishman could not be brought to 
justice, because lawyers and Railroad companies care 
nothing for a man like the writer of this, the Deity 
hath prepared a party of Americans who will eventu- 
ally sweep every Irishman from the face of this coun- 
try ! 

That Irish scoundrel is now employed, I have cause 
to believe, as Engineer on the Rail Road, between 
Savannah and Macon. He is rewarded. I am utterly 
abandoned with his wanton injury on my leg, which is 
impaired forever I and as men and the State of Geor- 
gia know me only to afflict and tax — the cry of such 
a poor one as me is entered into the ears of the Lokd 
OF Sabaoth ! 

Again I tried to sue a neighbor for doing me mani- 
fold damages ; and my attorney, contrary to my 
wish, placed it on a slight tresspass — not on a plain 
one : and the Jury twice mulcted me in cost. Oh, 
Georgia, when ye pocket my taxes, and. peel me by it, 
where is your protecting arm the consideration ? 
Merciful God of Justice ! 

I can, hardly get along- with my agricultural pur- 



28 

suits. This neighbor, after himself turning his Cat- 
tle into my field of silking corn, to trample it down, 
and into my winter canebrake, gave the cue to other 
neighbors who, like himself, without requesting me, 
put their cattle into my fields — and somebody shot a 
young valuable English-breed bull of mine in my 
own pasture, and burnt my house in one of the fields 
— a dwelling one. 

And now, when a person, Isaac Flanigan ap- 
proached me twenty feet, and stabbed, with confessed- 
ly assassin-intent, my body — because, in a fair-hand 
contest, he was held by me as a harmless child — the 
jury acquits him, as if he did right — which presup- 
poses that had he slain the acquittal would have been 
also of course ! His attorney knew what fools and 
malignants he had to address, and led them tvilling- 
ly away from crediting my testimony. Though the 
principal one, which could not constitutionally be in- 
validated by less than two witnesses, to believe the 
evidence of a man without either character or truth 
— and upon this the liberation was made, which ex- 
hibits to the tumultuous part of the people and to 
my contemners and enemies, what a slight regard the 
State had for me, and what impunity awaits every 
rascally desperado who should assail my person if, like 
Flanigan, I let him escape to appeal to the laws of 
the land. And now, if I sufficiently defend myself 
as to slay my assailants, what is my disposal, but to 
the gallows? A people that, as juries, would com- 
mend an assassin for trying to murder me, by ac- 
quittal, are certainly not the people to acquit me 
for killing any desperado. Their hearts are set 
against me for being deaf, for wearing long hair and 
beard, and for appearing grand in person, though 
ever in heart humble ; and for not getting a guar- 



29 

dian, which is unnecessary. And I call to the Go- 
vernor to notice this ; and to the President. I ap- 
peal somewhere. I have no Sultan to go to. I go 
to the rulers of our free country. If I were in Tur- 
key the great Ottoman had given me justice ! 

I am in a Republic, why should I not then have 
justice equally as in Turkey, or in China, or m Rus- 
sia ? Does freedom mean the liberty of such worth- 
less men as Flanigan to attack such worthier as 
Flournoy ? Is not liberty only equity, to the poor- 
est and weakest, honest man ? What else is liber- 
ty ? If this people do not understand, or care for 
liberty as equity — between man and man, alike, al- 
together — they but exhibit the tottering condition 
of their own independence, of which the Syren 
song of Democracy or Whigism is a pernicious non- 
sense, to have sense only when it becomes a wild, 
blast to direct a God-forsaken people to the sangui- 
nary introduction of monarchy ? 

Where heavy taxes — no lands— -and submission 
to a thousand aristocrats that environ the king, 
would teach too late, the juries, of Jackson county, 
what a great good they have thrown away, only by 
commencing to satisfy their indifference or maligni- 
ty about a free citizen, whose rights they annihi- 
late? 

Jackson county, in general, is a model for rlq 
country in the universe : a more nonsensic, drink- 
ing, swearing, foolish,«careless, rabble, I never be- 
fore have witnessed congregated in any locality. 
It is no use for me to prosecute offenders, or to sue 
tresspassers in this county, constituted as its peo- 
ple and juries now are. Were the best men chos- 
en to adjudicate cases, instead of every scoundrel 



30 

the Sheriff can find, there would be some chance 
for a man like me. Reformations and systems this 
people laugh to utter scorn. But out of this coun- 
ty, I have but little to boast of. Who in Ath- 
ens care to read my writings ? One wrote me 
they only read it, whenever they do, to " find what 
absurd things Flournoyhad declared!" And when 
I presented a short work on Peace, and asked 10 
cents per copy, none would buy but a mechanic, 
W. T. Stark ; and when I told the bearer of them 
to give them away, the people of Athens had the 
meanness to accept them ! I am getting poor for 
lack of patronage, pity, help, and any treatment 
due to a human being. Oh, Georgia, to treat thy 
son thus ! Thy loving, harmless son ! 

The facility which, epecially in Jackson county, 
assassins can escape justice, has made the malig- 
nant very forward to kill, and there is little peace 
in that community. For the defence of the people 
and of property, it is my decided conclusion that 
the trial by jury, inasmuch as it has failed to an- 
swer the end of its creation, must be abolished ! 
Then would sure retribution, by a better expedient, 
overtake the guilty! 

Republics have risen with joy and glory, have 
shone like meridian luminaries — and finally like 
guilty things, with the downward shoot of a me- 
teor, have lallen ! We have discovered the cause 
of this delusion in the conterript citizen had for citi- 
zen, in the glory of the legal profession^ and the 
empowerment of lawyers to the exclusion of the peo- 
ple, in the denial of private and public justice to all, 
and its possibility only to some ; and in that weari- 
someness, which the people feel of the things present* 



31 

and the hope they cherished of obtaining redress 
and tranquility under a monarchy. Although they 
discovered it was, in some other matters, making 
things worse. Thus, taxes are high in a kingdom, 
especially a warlike one : though offenders are 
more signally punished. A Republic that has ju- 
dicial justice peremptorily and faithfully to each 
man, deaf or hearing, eccentric or regular, ugly or 
pretty, repulsive or approximating — liked or hated: 
One who like me for reasons just and Godly, 
scorns fashion and flippant etiquette, or one who is 
popular in his strict observance of them ; and 
which has easy taxation and harmony of society and 
principalities; such a Republic is my beau ideal of 
what a genuine one be. But the way justice is 
partial, and denied here — the custom of Juries to go 
by feeling and not conscience ! the ferocious char- 
acter of our people; the frequency of assassinations 
and acquittals ; — the non-enforcement of accurate 
Jaws, such as against gambling, and carrying deadly 
weapons, and fornication and adultery, and other 
felonies and immoralities, — all this satisfy me that 
the good people will have a King, finally, and pay 
heavy taxes, with life and property secured, under 
his reign, rather than suffer all the licentiousness 
that now pervades the land] 

Then shall the ancient dogma still continue true, 
that " Republics are short lived : as man is incapa- 
ble of self Government " ! ! ! ! 

We owe it to Almighty God to be the more scru- 
pulously faithful in Christian and moral duties, and 
in the observance of our responsibilities to Him : — 
which necessarily includes the duties freemen poli- 
tically and ethically owe to freemen. We are bless- 



32 

ed in our liberties above the subjects of Royal 
Houses, and therefore more critically beholen to Di- 
vine Providence. " To whom much is given,"' saith 
the LORD ; "from him, much is expected" or will 
be exacted. Gifted with freedom, we are obliged by 
increased accountability. The serfs of Monarchy 
or the subjects of despotism, are not equally ac- 
countable as we. They have no special blesings, and 
God exacts but one talent's interest; whereas we 
must pay ten for five. 

As this is fully so, do we fulfil our responsibili- 
ties ? Never ! never ! In England, a man's life and 
property is securer than in the United States. This 
proves that our free people have defalcated tre- 
mendously from their proper standard. And what 
will the Omnipotent do? That He will do some- 
thing at any rate, no rascal can deny ; no honest 
man doubt. Then tvhat will He do ? Consult 
Hebrew History : and it tells us He will cast off the 
sinful that forget Him. Do our people remember, 
or reflect and meditate on His ways and goodness ? 
I fear not! They that do are few. And twenty 
Lots could not forever save Sodoms ! 

And in view of this transgression against Jeho- 
vah, going on every day in our madly licentious 
country, what is our social and political aspect ? It 
wears all the hues of a God-abandoned country. 
We are full of endless national differences about the 
African race. We have moved the Indians into a 
particular location, and stipulated a guarantee of 
protection from wild white squatters ; and now our 
government does not comply with its treaties to 
them, at the same time, we are quarrellers with Eng- 
land concerning, her bad faith ! and provoking In- 



33 

diau and foreign wars. If we fight Britain at this 
juncture of Eastern affairs, we must with France as 
her ally, and an attack on one ally is that on other al- 
lies. Hence, we may be involved in a general war of 
the kings of the world against us; should all Europe 
join the allies ! This would injure our country 
materially ; cripple all her commerce, and increase 
our national debt ; and if we do not succeed in ex- 
pelling them by prodigies of valour; the world 
may effect the despotism of this Republic ! Now, 
if but GOD be with us as He was with our fathers, 
no power or combination can enslave us. But if 
He be offended with us for living as if there were 
no Providence from On High, our situation is hope- 
less. Nor military hordes and discipline ; nor 
armories and fleets ; nor formidable fortresses or 
fenced cities, can avail us any good. A civil war 
and a servile war, with traitorous Abolitionists and 
Nullifiers in our midst, and si grand train of foreign 
Myrmidons in our country, bent on crushing out 
in one total subjugation, the spirit of liberty and the 
incentive and example to popular revolutions! — 
What can we in this event do ? But if only God, 
Amen, be for us, who can be strong against us? — 
The Hosts of God move at His word and controls 
the universe to good ! Hence, calmly we rest ; here 
we sleep with the confidence of a child ; and none 
can hurt a hair of our heads — sinful in this flesh and 
often cautious in the spirit as we be — when the Al- 
mighty bids our enemies as the storm, to be still! — 
We must, unceasingly, be like Washington, in spirit 
and heart, relying, or we fall ! Boast not of the 
civilization, refinement and glory of this 19th cen- 
tury, as a security against the downfall of any modem 



34 

Republic. That of Athens, Greece, existed longer 
than ours yet has. That of Rome endured for 
five centuries — from the expulsion of the Tarquins 
to the usurpation of Augustus. These are ancient 
examples ; and no age has exhibited so transient 
an endurance of free institutions, as that of France 
in her first and last revolutions. How transitory 
from the time of the privately bloody Robespierre 
to that of the publicly bloody Napoleon? How 
still more fleeting its duration from the appearance 
of the Great and Good LaMartine as the Pacificator — 
to the usurpation of Louis Napoleon ? We cannot 
anticipate perenniality when we are such wretches 
to use alcohal and tobacco, and other fatal things, 
from which the ancients were exempt. Nor can 
our Christianity benefit us above ancient Pagandom, 
when we use polluting and sickening stuffs. When 
men, like a Lumpkin and a Haygood, could destroy 
my papers, in the superabundance of their scorn for 
one so obscure and abhorred as myself; when a 
man can cripple me on the Central Rail Road, and no 
no Savannah Lawyer would indict or push the " con- 
cern," that they worship as Egypt her River Nile ; 
when, also, I could be assailed and without necessi- 
ty, stabbed by an assassin, and the Juries acquit 
him as doing well, and when I ask the Judge what 
must I do, in case I can get no legal redress, and 
am environed by foes, and when he could answer 
" stop bad company and strong drink, and mind 
your own business." And when one wished to 
assail me in sober company, at a court house, and 
I told the said Judge of this but he would not an- 
swer ; thus inferring that I may digest his insult 
after injury, as the cast out this- commiinUy wishes. 



35 

to make me ! Why the Judge ought to be aware, 
from letters previously written him, that I was mind- 
ing my own business when Boggs frequently tress- 
passed 'Hi my premises. And that I was not trying 
to kill FJanagan as he did try to, me. Then why 
insult and abondon me to the tender mercies of des- 
peradoes. Americans, whose love ever for me has 
been always cruel ! this, m social ways, is not the 
manner to obtain God's protection. The boy makes 
the man — private and social life the State, and the 
Union. Neither can stand by such flagrant imposi- 
tions on my person and such total and heinous 
abandonment of sacred duty to God and man, if at 
all the good and Great Creator have more regard for 
me and my aspirations than the people of the com- 
monwealth ! One more annecdote, and I close : 
When I wrote out my intolerable grievances, exhib- 
iting how I was made an out cast, stabbed and de- 
nied justice, I gave the manuscript to a local Metho- 
dist Preacher, who as printer, manipulates. But in- 
stead of sympathizing with me, he rebuked my effort 
"to be a leader ;" talked as if God were against my 
course of publishings and pride, and said no one 
read* my publications, but when one does, it is to 
" find something absure Flournoy has written." 
Is not this an example of the utter malignancy with 
which this people regard me, for being deaf and 
noble in spite of that impediment ; for trying 
to lead them to God and dut]/ — i. e. to Eternal Life ! 
— for not knocking into silly and extravagant, hell- 
tending fashions — and for avowing and sustaining 
systems, void of which another century would end 
upon the ruins of a now great and goodly Republic, 
only more perpetual the closer we stick or stay to 



36 

God, and by that common sense that constitutes man. 

The attempt, or the success of it, to make me an 
out-cast to out law me, is destructive, in the sequel, 
of the liberty of all but a privileged few — the prero- 
gatived nobility. 

I am attacked by all conditions of men. The 
Church, in her hypocrisy arid recreancy, furnishes 
her quota of scoundrels ; the State and society 
swells the magnitude of the enormous oppression ! 
James R. McClesky, and several of his brethren in 
lachrimose piety, the Parks, the Sewells, the Mc- 
Elhannons excused my attempted assassin on the 
first presentation of him before them and other 
scorners, as the " Grand Jury of Jackson county." 
They saw me attend camp-meetings ; they knew 
me to come often to church, though I hear nothing ; 
and they all knew Flanigan a desperado, a drunk- 
ard, and one that is never seen in church or at any. 
whatsoever, religious assemblage, and yet these 
" pious" men, could, notwithstanding my plain 
proof, turn me away, fruitless, to another Graud 
Jury, where it was, principally owing to John J. 
McCulloch and Dr. DeLaperriere that I had a true 
bill found. 

This book, in the latter part, is incoherent. But 
it is the incoherence of oppression. Standing alone, 
without sympathy and friends, I cannot argue the 
point with that competency which encouragement 
can afford. Driven from justice without mercy ; taxed 
by State ; charged in commerce and compelled to 
pay, whether or not I will, any demand my irre- 
sponsible family contract ; realizing yearly not two 
hundred dollars, as my income ; obliged, periodical- 



37 

ry, to sell capital to liquidate heavy debts run up 
against me without conscience ; as if men think I 
had thousands of annual dollars as interest on my 
estate : having been, because I dared not trust the 
Juries and courts of the country, obliged to re- 
linquish more than halt' my few slaves to my daugh- 
ter Mary C. Tenable, and her rapacious husband, 
James P. Venable, who had them and other property 
by the deceitful management of my first wife, and 
on her acquisition, her abandonment of her pledge to 
me : being all hands at will of the Law, for it will 
not look on me as it is by the sworn duty of perju- 
rious Judges, and of the Juries, because they are 
extremely averse to harbouring the idea that John 
J. Plournoy ought to own property, or to defend 
himself; 1 cannot write as a Junius, who had hosts 
of friends and a great Whig Party in England, to 
stand by his principles, as promulgated in his cele- 
brated, cogent and racy letters : nor, yet like Jeffer- 
son, declaring our Jurisprudence, with the 
nerve and determination of conscious right in the 
hearts of a Nation ; nor yet like the Trio, who,, 
backed by a mighty people, the numbers of the 
Federalist ; nor like any man, however low or how- 
ever high, who writes vigorous and graphic sen- 
tences, armed in the panoply of encircling friends 
and ardent admirers. 

My course of life has not run in these pleasant 
channels. Few love, if any, love me. Multitudes 
hate or feel the utmost indifference. Conscious 
that this is so, and writing to such men, how can a 
lone, timid, oppressed man, do better than baulk 
upon incoherence. But there is sense enough in 



38 



IF BUT YOU WOULD 



COMPREHEND E4CH, PRECISELY. 

How a man and a christian like Judge Hillyer. 
could have precipitated the Jury from conscience 
and the sacredness of their oath against me, to the 
letting go free of an assassin, and a base, unprinci- 
pled man, is to to me a wonder. Judge Hillyer was 
my friend. But it seems lawyers are working for 
reputation ; to be formidable : to be terrible ; and 
thus to get hosts of clients, and this hobby absorbs 
their entire souls ! Such an example is fatal on the 
morality and politics of the country. The people 
are ruled by the courts ; and the operation of courts 
of Justice in the way they are acting and in the 
judgment attained, does influence popular manners 
and feelings, with greater intensity than does the 
sacred church of God ! 

The success of cases is uot oftener by the plain 
evidence and the letter and spirit of the law, as by 
the acumen of counsel, who nonplus honest witness- 
es, avail of the rascally, and confound the unso- 
phisticated jurors, who however are often predeter- 
mined to go by their feelings of hate or love, for 
any suitor or prosecution. 

Lawyers knowing this, despise the people and 
Juries as heartily as Goliah did David ; and finding 
no better way of making a living than to act the 
acute legerdemain, have by tacit consent, polluted 
courts into a kind of circusiatt ring, in which the 
most expert please the men, twelve, who have long 
made up their hearts by premeditation, what they 
will do ! 

Hence in society, so many bad men and women 
exist. So many christians are so uttely inconsis- 



39 

tent ! and such numbers ol people avail of these 
legal rights, and jump into suits as if the matter 
were decided by virtue of adroit manoeuvre and so- 
phistry, and not at all by God's truth, God's will, 
and the fear in men, of God ! 

And our pontics, too, wirh what confusion do 
they reign. No party man cares for an opposite 
truth j and this great people are, in one shape or an- 
other, by degrees, sacrificing themselves and their 
heritage, upon the horrid altars of the pernicious 
legal profession. 

Well, Hillyer, you had me in my impotenc e there, 
ycu thought — / have you here, and will proceed to 
tear from this Mokanna, this veiled Prophet of 
Khorassin, his covering. 

People know Hillyer like bread! When Judge, 
he was more contemplating how to make the sub- 
ject. know the presence of the king, than immersed 
in profound reasoning about what is the law to 
lit and adjust circumstances and to benefit a free 
people. Laugh at the witty saying of a Lawyer, 
and he fines you ;. whisper with a friend, in court, 
and he mulcts you ; stand up in the bar, but out of 
the way, and u his majesty" is in hot water ; crowd 
the doors, and he issues his authority to make us. 
the gaping and staring people, know our place ! 
Yes. Judge Hillyer, I am happy to know that my 
assailant escaped by the agency, under Satan, of 
such men such a lawyer ; and such a presiding 
Judge, and such a Jury, redolent in the public opin- 
ion of such malevolents,assuch a surrounding crowd. 
Judge Hillyer, good hearty soul for Lawyers, never 
fined one of these exquisites for any horse laugL or 
for any indecorum. No, no, the King-at-heart 



40 

knows better than trouble his majesty's pet Eunuchs I 
It is the people, the greasy, cap tnrowing up, and 
chopped hands clapping, people, and like as this 
deaf, " in the ivay" dog, as " old Jacobus," as this 
people are mostly pleased to call their very best of 
iriends, that that Judge lives for signalizing, that 
the "voting population of the District" after- 
wards sent him to Congress, and to extend Empire tc 
only Lawyers ; it is there that he was " exflunctious' 7 
and " tetotalious" worried to give a proper set 
down to the people. 

This book closes. It is a phenomenon in this 
19th century of how a man, deaf and innocent, in 
a refined community enuld be treated by one of the 
courts of this State and Confederacy. Of course 
there is no remedy ! Go to the Coroner? He is 
but a mad-cap servant for the Lawyers. They- 
rule every thing. Their Despotism is abso- 
lute \ Who will redress me ? No one ! The 
heart of man is almost ever at bitter enmity with 
GOD. Even when converted, and true, his greatest 
exercise of faith and virtue, is not to murmur against 
Providence! How worse and horribly malignant, 
when un regenerate ? How frail: how feeble ! No 
wonder man does not love me. No wonder woman 
tallies exactly with him. I need not repine more 
than I have, when they eould malign at heaat the 
Creator, and Protector and Benefactor of the 
illimitable universe! and disown that even for Su- 
preme good He should have sole Empire over them! 
Such, such is man ! 

Some men, they say, are born to prosperity, others 
t;> adversity. But the fact is that man's inhumani- 
ty to man makes all these differences, A bad man 



41 

like Bonaparte, or even a Murrell if successful, is 
made a demigod ; but a quiet, harmless deaf mam 
though having innately a ^obler soul than anj de- 
stroyer of nations, is acco anted nothing, and his 
race of deaf people are cenied all chances of popu- 
lar office, or Government preferment ! A staring 
rabble cannot please his heart but by hating me — 
and giving office to aich men as Howell Cobb 

I will close after one more illustration , that 
appears in some measure a repetition. I do this with 
pain. 

I had one daughter, sole survivor of a numerous 
offspring. I wanted to make much of her ; to edu- 
cate her, and to wed her to some intelligent mai;, 
capable of an affectionate appreciation oj me. An 
adventurer from Missouri. Venable, saw her ana 
acted with an audacity and effrontery unbecoming 
a young man to the parents of daughters. He told 
my wife, the one now dead, that he fished me and 
her pick out a wife for him, and declared abruptly, 
that we would not have to go out to find one for him. 
from under our roo f! 

I desired to send my only child to school till 
seventeen. But this man, by the hearty concur- 
rence of the mother, who always disrespected my 
feelings and wishes, courted her at the early age 
of thirteen, and at fourteen demanded her in mai- 
iage ; and as I told him I wanted her to go to 
school till seventeen, he appeared surly and ill 
natured ; and to please them, I had to assent That 
wedding appeared the success of an audacious de- 
mand and angry assumption. And so I have a 
son-in-law, ignorart and presumptuous — have little 
satisfaction, or credit to myself in this matter. 



42 

I had his promise, through my wife, that he would 
hold family prayers, morning and evening, and live 
near me : but neither of these promises, if he ever 
made them, have been observed ! 

My deceased wife was a very assuming woman ; 
and as she was an invalid for long years, and the 
Physician advised conjugal abstinence, I tried to 
supply myself honorably with a new wife, without 
repelling her ; for I never, like the generality of my 
brother Georgians^ seek after some wench or harlot, 
for a concubine J I wanted to do women justice, as 
a wife, and to put all on an equality ! But how 
lamentable is it, that neither men nor women com- 
prehend to estimate me ! 

I went to see the city of Washington. On my 
return and weary, I was met at the threshhold of my 
house, by my wife, Eliza, who told me she had con- 
cluded on a Dr. Lytle's persuasion, to let me have 
another wife, or as many as five hundred if I wanted 
them, provided I gave her some property. I told 
her to defer this, to another time, as I was tired just 
now. But she would not defer ; but kept urging the 
matter ; and I afterwards suspected that she was 
advised to this course by subtle counsellors so as to 
get away from me some property. 

I then seeing that she was bent on letting me re- 
marry while she lived, agreed to the proposal, but 
hinted to her how she may get mad and leave me 
or refuse the boon : intimating that my policy was 
to have her to take care of while I had a new wife, 
as I am not one of those men who cry " one wife is 
enough, 5 ' but who only marry another by poisoning 
the first wife, or parting from her, or arrange with 
her for a concubine, without any rights of her ^wn ; 



43 

and who when they die have their property ail par- 
celled out to the children of the legal wife, and 
nothing is allowed the offspring by the concubine ! ! ! 
Monstrous policy ! 

Could a man like me agree to such a course ? 

But my wife disavowed that she ever would act 
so, as her fears had been for some property to stick 
to her ; and promised to abide with me as a good 
wife, and loving sister to the next one I marry. 

I then agreed to give her and our children, Mary 
Christina, and Henry Clay Flournoy, some con- 
siderable property, and made the settlement, which 
was drawn by Lytle, and witnessed by Wm, Bell, as 
a Justice. 

Henry Clay having died — his part reverted to 
me. One only child remained, Mary Christina. 

About this period intervened her marriage with 
James P. Venable. 

Before then, however, I, taking my wife at her 
word, looked about for the new bride. Having 
found one that I thought adapted to my consolation; 
and Mary's marriage having occurred, and she and 
her mother gone on a visit to Missouri, I wrote my 
wife about this discovery. She would not assent 
to it ; came home and proved unwilling ! ! She in 
some degree appeared willing, but not decidedly, for 
me to marry some one cf her relations. But I chose 
to pick out one for myself and wished her good 
faith to this. 

By this retroaction I considered the gift annulled. 
She had menaced, with her kin, the Justice, Bell, 
from performing the wedding ceremony ; and had, 
it is believed, sent some of her relations to drive the 
mother and daughter, I had intended, out of a hut 



44 

I gave them, and to pult it down. They hit the 
young girl with a stone on the shoulder. She 
was 13. 

I did not use legal force to rescind the gift — for I 
was of a mild, meek disposition, and her health so 
precarious and alarming that I let my wife hold this 
property for life. 

On her death bed she made a will unknown t© 
me, I suspected that there were men in her room one 
night making the codicil (but did not wish to pre- 
vent it or disturb a dying woman,) and not intended 
for me to know, in which she bequeathed my pro- 
perty to her daughter. 

After her death, Venable claimed her part, and all 
that was given to the children : together with what I 
had given him and Mary ; and without respecting 
me enough to reveal his purpose, took possession in 
my own house of the property and authoritatively 
told me of the fact. 1 forbade his taking them away. 
He said he held them till the law decides it. What 
audacity ? 

I told him that as the property were given con- 
ditionally, my wife's violation of the condition ren- 
dered them my own again, Bat he would not heat 
reason, care about justice, respect me, and. was bent 
on getting them from me, nolens volens ) the ma- 
jority of the negroes I had ; and acted in every re- 
spect like a son-in-law I deprecated I ever had. 

I wrote T. R. R, Cobb Esqr. relating to him 
what I would give. He replied that I did " fairly," 
and he would settle the matter between us if I would 
come to his office. 

We went : had two conferences. At first I asked 
Mr. Cobb to produce the letter giving one-fourth or 



45 

one-third the property that he had called u fair." 
He said it was lost ! I then told him what I would 
give. On Venable's not acceding to this, Cobb 
told me what would satisfy the man, and that more 
than half the negroes, and some land and money. — 
I would not assent to this. Another interview, and 
some arrangement was effected, by their receding 
from the rirst exorbitant demand. But it did not 
seem thai Mr. Cobb took my part with sympathy, 
or considered the lost letter to himself as of any con- 
sequence. He told me as if Venable had the best 
cause, that "he wished to go west and wanted his 
property." What, carry off my only child too, and 
in contradiction of his promise ! Of course as I did 
not consider public opinion hero or the Courts of 
Justice as favorable to my rights, I did not wonder 
to see Mr. Cobb rather on the side of Venable 
than mine. My wife's property and the children's 
were mine: and her's reverted to me on her death, 
as I understood the deed of gift, and the chil- 
dren's at my option was to be mine, during life. — 
Nor is this all, certain young men present, Lumpkin 
and Johnson, smiled against me, as if they had con- 
tempt for anything like right in me! 

Venable claimed also my little dead son's proper- 
ty, which reverted to me, and his wife's and my 
wife's — neither of which settlements were valid after 
her defalcation from her pledge. 

The gift ought (o have been drawn up condition- 
ally and with specifications. But I was too sick to 
supervise it, and J ,ytle and Bell were unsympathetic, 
and adroit enough to make it, whether originally cr 
from some copy, unconditional. And Venable con- 
tended for the whole, without any sort of defer- 



46 

ence to my authority, to keep my own, (and my 
wife was a pauper's daughter — bringing me not 
one dollar,) and Lawyer Cobb looked and acted 
as if it were all right for me to loose, and the ad- 
versary to gain, the property ! ! At least his sym- 
pathy was not for me, though as a Lawyer and a 
man, he ought to have known and felt better than 
that. He told me the case would go against me, to 
intimidate me ; and that the difficulty is to find 
evidence, and that Win. Bell, (who was^ assured by 
me here at my house to sign the deed of gift in 
presence of my wife, who did not deny it, that the 
gift to her was at her word, because she was to let 
me have another living wife) — had told Venable he 
could prove nothing for me ; thus wishing him to get 
the property, and though calling himself the best 
friend of mine ; though only such a friend as is the 
wolf to the Iamb ! 

I do not find anything to appreciate in Messrs. 
Cobb and Bell in this affair. And inasmuch as they 
were itching, and aching to see me retain, or 
add anything to my acquisitions, now much dimin- 
ished — it proves that the fell Genius of the country 
is against, my welfare. That I am to be either the 

MASTER OR THE SLAVE OF THE NATION C that UO man 

will meet me as an equal : that nothing but total 
pauperism in me and mine would ever gratify this 
people ; and that Georgia, so far from being a nurs- 
ing mother to me, is but an old beldame, who is 
withering my good name, blasting my energies, and 
nullifying my prospects, as a man and as a public 
benefactor, as if she were one of the dismal weird 
sisters that met Macbeth on the solitary heath! — 
I love her — but only I can do her a moral good— 



47 

I deprecate her and her people as my mahgners ! 
Here am I, advising expulsion for the coloured race 
as the security of National Peace ; and trigamy as 
the greatest incentive and constituent of National 
Liberty and Union — inasmuch as no one would 
lorego the prevailing condition of the country for a 
change, in that event, lest they loose their wives — 
— here am I, I say, as able an ameliorator and con- 
servator as any other citizen, and yet treated with 
unmitigated tyranny by the courts ; extraordinary 
abandonment by the Counsellors at Law, and by the 
community with that misjudgment, abhorrence 
and derision that belong only as a desert, to the 
character of the public devastater and of the social 
villain ! How I shall ever, amid such charges and 
suits as go against my possessions, have anything 
left me, who am obliged to keep a poor table and to 
liave poor clothing, is enigmatical. Every suitor 
in court that is considered a free man has himself and 
witnesses heard, and discrimination conceded him : 
but I have not that condition. Every father retains 
his property during life, and fraud is not con- 
secrated against him by lawyers and citizens ; 
but 1 have had to let go about half my property to 
one child, and before I having others for whom I 
must provide as I have a young wife, and this be- 
cause I had no confidence in the Juries and courts. 
How much of anything this population of pseudo 
civilization and pseudo Christianity, will finally, as 
creditors, and Juries, and Judges, and Sheriffs leave 
me. or how much vitality in my body, God only 
knows ! The North says the South is depraved by 
holding slaves. The South sees depravity in the 
North with its free negroes, and its amalgamation: 



48 

Both sections are " waxed proud, have kicked,'' 
and are now fit subjects for that abasement which 
God will fix upon the wicked. I am a son of the 
State and Republic, but what son than myself is 
more abandoned, hated, despised and maltreated? 
I do not wonder at this premonitory expression by 
such a people, which denotes that they are rapid- 
ly filling up the measure of their iniquity and 
pride, and who, unlike Nineveh, would not hear a 
solitary Jonah, Omnipotence, as a merciful warning, 
could send to them ! Which have proved despera- 
do-hearted citizens- — vain glorious impious-souled 
Lawyers, always at the head of secuhr affairs — a 
conceited, reckless, squeamish clergy, who preach 
mainly themselves, and will hear and respond to no 
letter I can write them. Alike people and Priests, 
I abhor with intensity, your ways, your pride, your 
fashions, your enmity of heart towards God, your 
want of sufficient trust in the efficicacy of Christ's 
blood, and your refusal to estimate a full and faithful 
obedience to the Son of God as of that importance, 
weighty as the concerns in their accuracy and pre- 
cision, of Eternity ! Like all sinners, in all ages, 
" going down to hell by the chambers of death." 
your churches allure you from noting and heeding 
the awful realities of obedience to GOD by re- 
pentance and faith ; and too many, and too fearfully 
much, you have systems and inventions, by which 
you lessen — do away with the value of obedience 
to the Gospel : artifices, such as baptism, ceremo- 
nials, ideas that works of supererogation can e vet- 
be, and predestination, splendid sermons and sing- 
ing and other paraphernalia : meantime and forev- 
er, for all who are sinners — all every one: " n r 



49 

good" — there remains no chance of hope of God, 
except by condign repentance in humility, and the 
most faithful, wide extended, varied and scrupu- 
lous obedience. The Bible is ever replete with in- 
junctions, to obedience, and obedience includes 
radical and latent repentance. It has little or noth- 
ing to say about unconditional decrees, ceremonials 
such as baptism and other operations. The first 
chapter of Isaiah, and all the Saviour's words de- 
note the divine idea concerning manipulations. — 
Vital piety is purity by repentance, and faith, 
by obedience. Show me such a community, and 
I will show you a society whose citzues would call 
me brother, and whose courts would accord me, in 
integrity, those rights, pertaining, in the fear of 
God, to my title to protection, and to my preroga- 
tive to citizenship. 

Although from a necessity to be exhibiting the 
tyranny of the Law and its administrators upon me, 
or rather its delinquency, I have had to portray 
my former wife and my daughter and son-in-law 
with revolting features, still it may not be supposed 
that myself and wife never enjoyed seasons, or in- 
tervals of domestic felicity, which were such as a 
married pair can wish — and seasons of affectionate 
consideration from my children. But on the par- 
ticular matter exhibited, they were all arbitrary and 
despotic ! Besides my wife, in the dying state, 
may not have been cognisable of the sacred duty 
of wife to revere her husband : and letf me nothing of 
her own as a sad memento of her love ; perhaps she 
was driven to desperation by my idea of distributing 
love also to another spouse. At any rate, among 



50 
the vast majority of marriages; happiness is fitfully, 
a novelty— and the thing a mere convenience. 

A deplorable mistake has been made by both par- 
ties to Hymen— but I must sternly and truthfully 
confess more on the wife's side— although an ine- 
briated husband, persistently resorting to alcohol, is 
the great plague an affectionate wife has to endure, 
r And it is the crying sin of the people and the Le- 
gislature, that tippling shops are allowed and that 
no check is put on such beastly husbands.] The 
fact is, daughters are not admonished how to choose 
husbands, or of their duties to them afterwards ; 
and as most women or rather "ladies," ( which cog- 
nomen is execrable)— will dress and contract debts, 
and have dignity, fashion and exclusive circles- - 
the result is anything but the conscientious approv- 
al of their considerate partners, and anything but 
promotive of their own felicity as wives In this, 
they violate nature's harmony, and shock religion, 
as purely defined by the sermon in the Mount.- 
Nature and religion cannot be so treated with impu- 
nity ! I told my daughter, that I would rather she 
never would have Venable, for I was not propheti- 
cally satisfied he would altogether suit me in the 
connexion^ but if she would have him, she must 
make up her mind to forever respect and revere him, 
next to God ! That too many women marry with- 
out the resolution to submit to and honor their 
husbands through every extremity, and the conse- 
quence is, too much more domestic and social mise- 
ry than ought to be in the land : That a girl had 
no business 8 marrying before she has found ^nly the 
future husband, concerning whom she can deliber- 
ately and unceasingly obey Christ m this portraiture 



51 

of the Great Apostle : that " the man is the head 
of the woman," (or wife) "as Christ is the head of 
the man." 

Too many marry for lust, or unthinking about — 
"can I always defer to this man, should he prove 
arrogant and overbearing, and love and submit still — 
as moulded into and by him ; or respect him with 
ceaseless fervor, if patient, submissive and amiable, 
without despising and directing him." This is the 
grand question all girls ought to ask themselves, 
and upon which to lay the foundation of their mar- 
ried lives. Matters of parts and disposition are of 
inferior moment. ^Tis womart s own fault if she 
be the unhappy wife ! A young lady marries any- 
body she inexorably pleases, and then thinks she 
can mould him down to her will ! ! And how 
many thousands discover, too late, their error, and 
the sad want of the philosophy laid down in these 
pages ! Never marry a man you feel you cannot 
forever reverence. Never marry a woman you are 
not sure you can perpetually love. 



Since writing the above volume, and while it 
was in press, I have had assassins to avail of the 
darkness of the night, to come near, shoot at me or 
in my dwelling-house in Jackson county, and to 
destroy panes of its window-glasses. I know when 
men are so dificult or impossible of punishment by 
the laws when they harm me, that the audacity and 
malignity of the wicked are encouraged by this im- 



52 

punity, and that I am estimated by this community 
as mere expletive ! 

This book was in publishing since 1855. It re- 
mained long in the printer^ hands. Sessions of 
the Superior Court transpired, and as usual, so far 
as I am concerned, pursued the path of the devil ! 
The term February, 1857, found me as a prosecu- 
tor before the "Grand Jury" of a culprit for seduc- 
tion and adultry with my young wife — overcoming 
her young mind, seducing her heart. The Solici- 
tor General, it seems, introduced a witness to do 
away my testimony, and I can prove never swore 
him. The Grand Jury returns no bill, though my 
evidence was clear and strong, and proved that the 
villain and my wife had no business where they 
were in the woods, and when they saw me leaped 
up and fled. This Grand Jury, some of them, 
laughed at me as I was testifying ! I reported to 
the Judge the delinquency of the Solicitor, and 
although he promised me to attend to it after the 
pending case was over, he did nothing. A man 
who had been returned by a former Grand Jury, 
was at the same term tried on evidence less positive 
than mine, and found guilty \ 

In a civil case, a Petit Jury found for my adver- 
sary, who was suing me for debt contracted by my 
runaway wife without my permission, in these 
words of the foreman, James B. Lyle : '-'We, thy 
Jury, found for the plant yfe ! " How appropriate 
the words of that ignoramus and his bevy of igno- 
rama ; we thy Jury find for thy dear and affection- 
ate plaintiff ! However unintentional, he hit the 
matter exactly in calling Judge Jackson's Jury "thy" 
Jury, and the plaintiff opposing me, "thy" plaintiff, 



53 

The defendant was a stranger to the Court, and 
accordingly served. 

The morality generally of Georgia, and especial- 
ly of Jackson county, is dreadfully low ! Adultery 
and fornication teem : indictments are difficult 
against either! It is the fault of Lawyers and 
Grand and trying Jurors, whose embodiment is per- 
dition. They say as much as that my wife should 
not be altogether my own. Here am I, meek, mild 
and rational — forbearing to kill one Hays and 
one Chandler, his confidant and cats-paw, and 
presenting one, as a christian would, before the 
Grand Jury, while I try to reclaim my erring wife. 
Instead of receiving mine as a great, and good, and 
noble and magnanimous people would, and cherish- 
ing my course as just the example, the infernal 
heads of this damnable Grand Jury laughed me to 
scorn, refused me the trial, and among themselves 
talked (as one of them informed* me) of how they 
would have killed Hays and divorced Sarah ! Are 
these thy people, Georgia! — many of them '-pious 
christians/' but contradicting Jehovah's will and 
making of no avail the blood of the Redeemer ? 

Oh that every Ruler, Judge and Jury in our coun- 
try would lay to heart the sixth and seventh verses 
of the nineteenth chapter of the second Chronicles, 
in the Holy Bible, which search and see : Barris- 
ters at law seem to be as much tempted to commit 
sin as any other men or profession. The Saviour 
did not commend them ! Yet, they are a sort of 
necessity to society. Nevertheless, when exem- 
plary, they have the hope and reward of Nicode- 
rnus. To them, therefore, — for they rule the Re- 
public, or lead in every system, — I would appeal on 



54 

one, and a most delicate part of their duties. Gen- 
tlemen of the Bar, your calling is one of dignity 
and conservation; but when you permit, or tolerate, 
lying testimony by that lenity to perjurists in which 
rascals rejoice, either as legislators, making their 
penalty, or as prosecutors appointed to punish them, 
you allow yourselves to be trifled with, and your 
operations to be those of. silly puppies ! ! You and 
the Judges are controlled by testimony, and false 
witnesses and oath-breaking jurors, make the Court 
a mockery and a degradation in the eyes of philoso- 
phers, of angels and of God. 

I implore you, therefore, Lawyers, all things con- 
sidering, to be signally peremptory, unmitigating and 
severe on the execrable perjurist. Let his penalty, 
when really guilty, be heavy ! Be alert, vigilant 
and determined, every one of you, in every aspect, 
to ferret out and grab the abominable juror, or wit- 
ness, that premeditates contempt for his oath, and 
irreverence to God. 

In this my safety lies. Sift me to the bottom 
and you will see in what am I an offender or delin- 
quent. 

To Ministers of the Holy Gospel, I would say, 
your surmises and adroitness of logic, neither estab- 
lish light in men's hearts, nor explain the Word of 
God. Circumlocution and pedantry in the church,, 
make that "solemn assembly" iniquity : as see 
Isaiah, chapter first. The brightest light we can 
throw on man's duty to God and mankind, is in that 
acclamation of the holy Psalmist, and which one of 
the holy Apostles endorsed : "The just are saved 
by faith." The just, not the unjust ! So faith is 
dead without works. We cannot flatter God. 



55 

Arminianism and Calvinism are neither of them 
right altogether, and neither wrong. We know 
God saves by grace alone, for Avorks cannot benefit 
Him. He is above all man's doings, or to what 
can contribute to His own good. Still, He accepts 
the faith that is based on the works of man, for the 
ten commandments are easy and merciful after all, 
as they forbid only harm — not to kill, not to steal, 
not covet. And it is solely by a strict and uniform 
obedience to them that man's faith is accepted. — 
The just then, are saved by faith. None others, 
the just alone. 

We need not attempt to flatter sinners that defer 
their conversion and do wickedness till they are old, 
nor soothe the feelings of unfaithful christians with 
the idea, that on repentance they can get directly 
into grace. I fear this is a fatal error to millions. 
Preachers are unfaithful syrens of hope, to console 
the malignant thus. Be just ! You can now, if 
you will. Believe Christ is the Saviour, and that 
salvation by God the Father, through the Holy 
Spirit. Be just, that is vital. But no juror, no 
Judge, no witness, no Lawyer, conies up to this 
standard, by summarily dismissing me from justice. 
God sees this. No repentance is radical or sure, 
that doth not constitute a man to be fundamentally 
just. No man is hopefully pious, that to this char- 
acter, exemplary as Heaven is high and eternity sol- 
emn, does not add faith. All our works are super- 
erogatory, but we are not at liberty to esteem them 
unnecessary ! We cannot possibly wo?.k enough 
for God. We must, however, do all we can ; 
but humbly confess, in the philosophy of theology 
and the metaphysics of Divine things, our unprofit- 



56 

ability. We are predestined as free moral agents, 
to redemption, because the Almighty foreknew we 
had the voluntary disposition by his creation to obey 
and to prove just ; hence, when we be saved, the 
glory is God's, not ours, for His mercy, that bright- 
est jewel in Christ's diadem, is freely accorded us 
who are just, by His empowering so to remain 
those who study and strive incessantly not to rebel 
against his will or authority. It is, alas, well known 
that some "would rather rule in hell than serve in 
Heaven.'' These do not wish to contemplate the 
idea that God is over them, even for their own 
good ! This is the master-feeling of Satan — the 
revolting, fallen Angel. It is the most powerful 
passion and phrenzy of the human soul, in its depths, 
that only genuine repentance, and humility and 
love of truth, in other words, true conversion by 
grace, can reach to change it into that childlike sim- 
plicity which is the sine qua non of Religion ; and 
which only a perpetually being just and having firm 
faith, secures to every offspring of Adam and Eve, 
by that virtue, the atonement without which all 
were in vain. "The just are saved by Faith." — 
And "charity," as the Apostle lexiconed it, is 
greater, he saith, than faith and hope : charity is 
peace,jand the fulfillment of the Decalogue, It is 
Love, and Love is God. 



FINIS. 



A 



